they are cautious never to oppress or
mortify a child--directing the parental authority first to the teaching
of the heart, then to the mind--instilling what are duties with a
tenderness and gentleness which win the affections of the child to
perform these through love only. Propriety of deportment toward their
seniors and toward each other is instilled from infancy and observed
through life. All these lessons are stamped upon the heart, not only by
the precepts of parents and all about them, but by their example.

The negro servants constitute a part of every household, and are
identified with the family as part of it. To these they are very kind
and forbearing, as also to their children, to whom they uniformly speak
and act gently. A reproof is never given in anger to either, nor in
public, for the purpose of mortifying, but always in private, and
gently--in sorrow rather than in anger; and where punishment must be
resorted to, it is done where only the parent or master, and the child
or servant, can see or know it. This is the example of the Church. The
confessional opens up to the priest the errors of the penitent, and
they are rebuked and forgiven in secret, or punished by the imposition
of penalties known only to the priest and his repentant parishioner. Is
it this which makes such models of children and Christians in the
educated Creole population of Louisiana? or is it the instinct of race,
the consequence of a purer and more sublimated nature from the blue
blood of the exalted upon earth? The symmetry of form, the delicacy of
feature in the males, their manliness of bearing, and the high
chivalrous spirit, as well as the exquisite beauty and grace of their
women, with the chaste purity of their natures, would seem to indicate
this as the true reason.

All who have ever entered a French Creole family have observed the
gentle and respectful bearing of the children, their strict yet
unconstrained observance of all the proprieties of their position, and
also the affectionate intercourse between these and their parents, and
toward each other--never an improper word; never an improper action;
never riotous; never disobedient. They approach you with confidence,
yet with modesty, and are respectful even in the mirth of childish
play. Around the mansions of these people universally are
pleasure-grounds, permeated with delightful promenades through
parterres of flowers and lawns of grass, covered with the delicious
sha